Ch. 2 - The 2016 Election

This chapter explores the years before the Great Collapse, as well as the election that set us on the path to the Great Collapse.

The 2016 Election

Now before I talk about the Collapse itself, I want to lay some background, and talk about the events that happened in the years preceding the Collapse. You know, the who, what, where, why and how of the event. What could possibly have happened to bring out such horror and destruction, to the point where most who lived through it are still traumatized? You see, though society was quite a bit different before the economy collapsed in such horrific fashion, things were not that great back then either, at least for a sizable amount of the population of the former United States. To be sure, the U.S. was still better off than most nations in the world, many of whom were quite poor even before the Collapse, but there was much room for improvement here. And all we needed to bring about the destruction of our nation was a little push.

The biggest marking of society in the years before everything went to hell was the increasing inequality between the social classes. You see, various decisions made by business leaders and political leaders had dramatically shifted more and more wealth to those who were already well off, giving this small portion of our population (the one percent, as many used to refer to them) ever more wealth and power. A handful of these modern-day robber barons built up fortunes in the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars, their firms gobbling up ever larger swaths of the global economy. Most industries came to be dominated by a few firms, or even just one firm. These uber-wealthy individuals were upheld as brilliant business minds by some, and derided as grotesque villains by many others. Surely, they used all manner of shady practices, such as poor treatment of their workers and swallowing up or outright destroying their competition to become that powerful. Like I would always say, one did not obtain a vast fortune by being good to others. One definitely had to step on countless folks to get that rich.

Conversely, most regular folks found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet with each passing year. Many millions had to work longer and longer hours, take on extra jobs, put off their retirements, and take on ever more debt, just to stay afloat. Many families needed two or three incomes, where one was once sufficient for most households. As the years went by, prices for most things, especially vital things such as housing, health care and higher education increased rapidly, while wages and salaries, well, did not. By the 2010’s, the period immediately before the Great Collapse, a whole 80 percent of American households were living paycheck to paycheck, where one unexpected major expense, such as a hospital bill or a car breaking down, can lead to financial ruin. According to one well-known study, over half of American families would find themselves to cover a 400 dollar emergency expense, should one arise. The wealthiest Americans saw their incomes skyrocket in the decades leading up to the Great Collapse, while everyone else saw their pay stay largely the same in the face of rising costs. Indeed, the richest 0.1 percent of income earners made as much money as the poorest 90 percent…..combined. A corporate Chief Executive Officer of a large company would make several hundred times as much money as their typical worker, while 750,000 people would be homeless on any given night. The net worth of the typical U.S. household actually dropped between 1983 and 2016. And an Oxfam report in 2016 showed that the world’s wealthiest 62 people had as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population. Income inequality also grew, albeit at a slower pace, throughout the rest of the world as well.

As a result of all this, many working-class families lived with a sense of unease, as they were always on the precipice of poverty, or even homelessness. In the years before the Collapse, there were seemingly two distinct Americas, with a privileged few amassing huge fortunes that sometimes ran into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, allowing them to live extravagant lifestyles and give the absolute best for their families on one hand, while the hallowed American Dream died for many millions of others. By the decade preceding the Great Collapse, we had reached the point where the new generation of Americans would actually be worse off than their parents’ generation for the first time in the nation’s history. How did this slide start, you ask? Well, it was pretty simple. With every year, starting in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the wealthy and business groups launched a plan to gain more political power, as they balked at the social progress made over the previous few decades where laws were passed giving protections to workers and the poor. This vast array of programs and regulations, from minimum wage laws to Social Security and Medicare for the elderly to cash and food stamps for low-income individuals, led to a broad-based prosperity where most Americans benefitted. The wealthy balked at such progress because they had to pay more taxes to obtain these gains.

What did these wealthy folks do to turn the tide back to their side? They worked to bring in more leaders who would be friendly to their interests. Once people who were friendlier to business interests gained more power, more laws were passed and more policies were changed, most of these clearly favored the rich, as well as big business. For instance, taxes on the wealthy saw a precipitous drop, to the point where a billionaire typically paid a lower tax rate than the middle class did. The economic progress that had lifted many out of poverty and created a large middle class was stopped in its tracks, and some of the help and protections given before were reversed. The middle and working classes saw their wages stay stagnant or even drop, and saw their benefits, which they had worked for for many years in some cases, slashed. Moreover, jobs in most fields have less and less job security because, if employers saw that their work can be done cheaper elsewhere, their job would disappear entirely. As for the poor, they usually stayed poor, with fewer and fewer job prospects, as social mobility (the ability to move up in life, to move from poor to middle class, or even rich) decreased sharply. The continued increase in prices for important things, despite the stagnation or decrease of worker’s pay, made it to where these things were becoming increasingly out of reach for millions of Americans. To top it off, the social programs that the government instituted over the previous several decades to help them stay afloat increasingly were subject to cuts by leaders who were beholden to the rich, who wanted to pay as little in taxes as possible. Those same politicians and their supporters took to deriding the less fortunate as lazy, as moochers for needing help to survive because they lost their job, or their job didn’t pay enough to stay afloat. This argument was used in order to justify cutting social programs. One of the major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party, fully embraced these arguments, adopting them in increasingly extreme fashion as the years passed. These conservative tales, which were often racially tinged, caused many working-class and middle class individuals to feel a sense of resentment, to feel that they were being ripped off by these “welfare moochers” who were living off of their tax dollars, a stereotype of poor people that persisted for decades, and created a stigma to obtaining benefits that instilled a sense of shame in many who were unfortunate enough to get them, and caused those who were better off to sneer at and look down upon those below them on the income ladder.

Another big change that caused the middle class to slowly vanish was the decline of industry. Industrial jobs were a major source of employment in the United States for much of its history. Big cities and small rural towns alike suffered when their factory or plant, the main source of their employment, packed up and left, either to another part of the country, or to another country. The American landscape was dotted with cities that were blighted by deindustrialization, as their jobs left, with crime and desperation left in its wake. Companies prioritized making as much money as quickly as possible, and they sought to cut costs wherever possible. And if hundreds or thousands of employees were to suffer as a result, so be it. Corporations became increasingly beholden to shareholders, this new emphasis on maximizing shareholder value led to enormous social costs. 

Another catalyst of deindustrialization was the introduction of new trade deals, which were pushed heavily by business groups to make it easier for different nations to trade with each other, and allowed large corporations to exploit their workforces as they saw fit. Free trade, as the proponents of these deals called it, allowed corporations to have their products made in nations where the workers were paid far less than what American workers made. Before long, most of our goods, and increasingly our services as well, were made in places as China, India, Mexico, and numerous other nations, where employees toiled in terrible conditions, working long hours, for little to no pay at the whims of employers who had the power to ruin their lives if they didn’t comply. It was slavery, pretty much. Year after year, working class and middle class people all over the United States saw their jobs leave, right before their very eyes, and many Americans were completely okay with this. The number of jobs, starting off with manufacturing but spreading to other industries, that were “outsourced” to some other country numbered well into the millions. Sure, people lost their jobs and either took a new job with less pay or joined the ranks of the poor, but now many consumer goods, such as clothing items and electronics, were cheaper than ever. People were generally not too concerned with the loss of jobs and the ruthless exploitation of the workers in the faraway lands where goods were now produced, as long as they can get a t-shirt for seven dollars at the local Walmart. In many parts of the country, the other 99 percent of Americans saw their incomes actually decline. Overall, the share of the income and wealth going to the top one percent had reached levels not seen since the late 1920’s, immediately preceding the Great Depression (which held the title of worst economic downturn until the Great Collapse hit). The inequitable distribution of wealth was seen as a major cause of the Depression, and there was worry that the huge gap between rich and poor would eventually cause similar problems if unchecked.

As I was growing up during this time, I saw firsthand the struggles of my family, my friends, and my neighbors. I came of age during the Great Recession,as I was in high school when the economy went down. Like many others, I was quite worried of what exactly the future had in store for me and my family. Like millions of other families, this was a turbulent time for the Collins household. My father, Will Sr., lost his job at a cabinet company in February of 2009. I was in 10th grade at the time, it was a bit over a year after the start of the recession and about five months after the financial crisis came to a head back in the late summer and early fall of 2008. He had quite a difficult time finding work for over two years afterwards, as there simply weren’t many jobs available, and the competition for the jobs that were available became more fierce. In the worst part of the recession, there were a staggering five unemployed people for every job opening in the U.S. (and that just counted people who were actively seeking work, as millions just gave up looking entirely, and thus weren’t counted in unemployment statistics). We survived on his unemployment benefits that he got from the state of California, and later on once those ran out, cash welfare payments and food stamps. These were all very helpful government programs, which helped many people in their time of need. Anti-poverty programs such as these came in especially handy when the economy was weak, and there were more people who were at risk of falling into poverty. Not only did these safety net programs help millions of people, they also had the effect of stabilizing the economy during hard times, by increasing the amount of money cycling through the system. These programs, among others, were the very same programs that the Republican Party worked tirelessly to reduce (or even eliminate). There was certainly more need than usual in the wake of the recession. People from all walks of life, from factory workers to construction workers to teachers to office workers and everything in between, lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings. People who had worked hard for years saw their hopes and everything they worked for go up in smoke. Many had to cut back on luxuries, and also necessities, until they got back on their feet. My family was definitely no exception to this stark new reality, as we ate less, didn’t get to take any trips or doing anything else special (no more baseball games or amusement park trips), and fell behind on the rent for our house. Like many households, it was a tough time for us.

Now about my family. Of course you know about me, and that I had two younger sisters, Leann and Briana. Leann was born in 1997 and Briana was born in 2003. My mother was a kind, loving woman named Sue, who always tried to protect me from anything bad. I was always rather close to my mother, much closer to her than to my father. She became a stay at home mom a couple of years after having Briana, but before that she had worked as a clerk at a video rental store. My mom just understood me like nobody else did, as I was a painfully shy and awkward kid who had great difficulty making friends. We got each other’s jokes, and I knew I could usually go to her for advice. I did have a bit of a rough childhood. For starters, I was a frequent target of my schoolmates. I was the pudgy kid with glasses who was always called “nerd” and “geek” and “fatso” by the other kids in school. The hard time I got from other kids (and some adults) took a psychological tool on me, which just made me withdraw even more. As for my dad, he was a stern father. I did butt heads with my father somewhat when I was a teen, as he was the type of father who felt that his opinion was the only one who mattered, and that things had to be done his way. But at the end of the day, he loved me and the rest of the family, and wanted what was best for us. He was an incredibly hard-working man who would do whatever he can to provide for the family, and not working really took a toll on him during this time, as it did for countless other people who were suddenly unable to put food on the table, to keep a roof over the heads of their families. The recession was definitely harder on him than it was on the rest of us, he felt like a failure for being unable to find work.

 When I was a kid, the Collins family bounced around southern California, moving rather frequently, before finally settling in Ontario in 2003, not long before I started middle school. We had settled in nicely in our apartment, and it was nice to live in one place for more than a couple of years. And after always struggling to fit in everywhere I went (it was hard always being the new kid in school), I was even starting to make some friends for once, like Jimmy Sanchez and Andrew Martinez, a couple of kids who lived down the street. We would hang out and play sports or video games until I got called to come inside by one of my parents. Sports were my big thing as a teen, I could play for hours, and then when I came home I would grab some sports magazine and just sit and read sports statistics whenever I wasn’t doing homework or chores or helping my mom out with my sisters.

Like I said before, the recession hit my family pretty hard. My dad had lost his job, and that, of course, led to some major financial struggles over the next couple of years. Then in the spring of 2011, just weeks before I graduated from high school, my dad decided that he could do something that he had always wanted to do over the years, but never gotten the chance. He was going to be a truck driver, transporting goods for companies around the country. With the help of the welfare agency’s job placement program, he came into contact with a truck driving school, where he passed the course with flying colors. He got his Commercial Driver’s License, and started driving with Covenant Transport, one of the major trucking companies, in May of 2011. He was thrilled to be employed once again, to be able to provide for my mom, myself and the girls. Within a couple of years, my family, despite our financial ups and downs over the years, was actually doing better than ever. My dad even did well enough at the trucking company he worked for that he and his co-driver were recognized as being among the best drivers in the whole company. Another perk they got was that they were given a set route, as opposed to driving anywhere he was asked. He would go back and forth to Denver, Colorado, and then be home for two days every week, instead of being gone for several weeks at a time, like he was while zigzagging here, there and everywhere. My family did enjoy seeing him every week, and on top of that, he made more money per week as well. Despite our improved situation, we did have a setback in 2012, when the landlord of our house in Ontario got foreclosed on and we had to move. Once the bank that had taken over the home and told us and our neighbors that we had to move, we scrambled to find a new house, constantly perusing the listings for available houses, calling these places and visiting, and filling out forms and getting our credit checked. And of course, the physical act of moving. Ugh, I always hated moving.

After weeks of frantic searching, we would find a place in Montclair, a neighboring city a couple miles to the west of where we had been living. Other than the move to a less familiar area, things were looking up for the Collins family. I didn’t like that I had to move away from Jimmy and Andrew, but we kept in contact, and they were still just a 15-minute bicycle ride away from me. Anytime I wanted to, I rode my bike, or rode the bus over to Ontario, or later on once I was working, went over after work to hang out with the guys. Despite not living there anymore, I probably spent more time in Ontario than I did in my new hometown.

As for my academic exploits, I was a pretty good student. I got good, but not great grades at Chaffey High School, where I would graduate in May of 2011. I had perhaps a B average, but my parents, as well as my teachers, thought I should have done better. I could be a valedictorian and go to an elite college if I applied myself fully, they would say to me (especially my father, it seemed that I could never be good enough for him). Anyways, my grades were still good enough to get me into Cal Poly Pomona University, a high-quality state-run college in nearby Pomona. To attend, I used grants from both the state and federal government. I was offered student loans, which I would have to pay back, but the grants (which did not have to be paid back) were sufficient to cover all my tuition and book expenses. Even in college, I was still kind of a quiet person. I was less shy and awkward than before, but I still didn’t talk much with my classmates, except when I had to work in groups with them (group work was always the absolute worst), and I didn’t really join any groups or clubs on campus. I just wanted to go to class, do my work, and go home. I didn’t really come into my own socially until towards the end of my time in college. On top of my classes, I did get a job once I turned eighteen. I managed to get a job at the very same video store my mother worked at years earlier, a small mom-and-pop store called Video Star. Video Star was the very first video store to open in the city of Ontario, just a couple blocks from my old house. The boss, a sixtyish gentleman of Indian descent named Raj, remembered me from when I was a kid, and hired me when there was a job opening in May 2012, two months after moving to Montclair. The job didn’t pay much, just minimum wage, but it was something to help me get through school. It gave me money to help my family out financially, such as helping out with groceries or with the electric or gas bill. The job also gave me some spending money to buy clothes, to go out with friends, and for transportation to get to and from school (I took the city bus up until I finally got a driver’s license at the age of twenty). I used my abilities with numbers to my advantage at work, remembering the numbers for many of the various titles the store carried, and memorizing customers’ store account numbers. Numbers were always a love of mine, for some reason. I learned to calculate numbers in my head at a young age. This would amaze my friends, family, classmates and teachers, who often referred to me as “the human calculator”, which I always got a kick out of. My buddy Andrew liked to use my ability as some sort of party trick, as he would ask me to calculate random numbers when we were out with other people. Also, when it was time to decide what classes I wanted to take in college, I thought of that ability, and chose to become an accountant. I was going to be a number-cruncher, looking at and creating and analyzing reports and company financial statements and recording transactions in a cubicle in some office building somewhere. Perhaps I would like to become a Certified Public Accountant someday, running my own firm where I did the accounting for various individual and corporate clients.

As I reached adulthood, and started attending college, I had developed another interest other than sports and numbers. I was starting to care more about politics and the world around me. I had developed my political beliefs, which can certainly be described as left-wing, before adulthood, but I had started to really get into it now that I saw how politics affected everything around me. This was an odd interest for someone my age to have, as young adults were known for not being particularly politically engaged, but that didn’t stop me. On top of sports news, I would scope out the top political stories of the day as well, poring over articles on news or political Internet sites, sometimes for hours on end. I learned about things I didn’t know, or even think about, beforehand. The new things I learned about how the wealthy and big business gaining more power, or how the poor were being increasingly left behind, reinforced the beliefs I already had. Furthermore, I started to really see the dangers posed by the increasingly extremist right-wing movement. Personally, I felt that the conservatives that I would come across were generally good people, who loved their country just like I do, they just had a different mindset on what America was supposed to be. I even noticed that there could be some common ground to be found between them. Despite that, I felt the Republican Party itself had an insidious agenda, and would stop at nothing to take over all the levers of power, and implement the wishes of the corporate elites. I was deeply concerned and fearful of what would happen if that ever took place. What kind of harm would come to happen to myself and those I cared about? What would it do to society as a whole?

As for me, despite all the commotion in the world around me, I pressed through college, and I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting in June of 2015. I did it, I made it through all those business and accounting classes, and graduated with a solid B+ average. It was time for me to move on, away from college, and away from the video store. Immediately upon my graduation, I hit the job market in search of a job in the accounting field, to make use of that nice new degree and improve my station in life. After a few months of fruitless searching, and several interviews for various accounting positions, I did manage to land a job working in the accounting department of a medium-sized manufacturing firm named Milton Plastics that was based in Brea, in Orange County about fifteen miles from where I lived. I started my job at Milton Plastics in October of 2015, leaving Video Star shortly thereafter after close to four years working there. Located in a nondescript light brown building surrounded by other nondescript business buildings, this company made various plastic products for consumer use, selling them in stores such as Walmart and Target. Though the company was headquartered here in southern California, the actual products we sold were made, of course, at factories located in China. My job revolved around handling the accounts payable, recording and keeping track of the company’s purchases, and making sure the company paid its bills to vendors on time, so as to not affect our credit or hurt our reputation. It was a pretty typical entry level job in the accounting field, a good way to start out my career. 

This wasn’t going to be my permanent job, at least I hoped it wouldn’t be. I was just gaining experience and biding my time until I can take (and hopefully pass) the difficult CPA exam. Once I passed that, I would give another try applying to the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) firms, where I had no luck when I was first applying for entry-level positions right after graduation. One thing that always bothered me about the job market was that most jobs, even entry-level jobs, required work experience before one can be considered for the job. My big question always was “how can I get experience if no one would hire me?” I was told that I should get what was called an internship working somewhere in order to get hired by a company. I thought of going that route even though I despised the concept of internships, which were pretty much legalized slavery, as most interns were not paid at all. It allowed firms to not pay a portion of their workforce. Perhaps even more insidious was the fact that internships gave a leg up for those from wealthy backgrounds. After all, coming from a well-off family allowed one to work for no pay for a time, a luxury that poorer jobseekers couldn’t afford.

Luckily, I ended up not needing that, as Milton Plastics ended up hiring me. Despite having a degree in Accounting, my starting pay at Milton Plastics was a mere thirteen dollars an hour. Even though this was only three dollars per hour more than I was getting at the video store (the minimum wage in California was ten dollars an hour), and a few dollars an hour less than most comparable accounts payable jobs, there were opportunities for rapid advancement and promotions in this company that simply didn’t exist at the video store. Within a couple of years, I could be making up to eighteen dollars an hour, or so my new boss, a stern-looking, slender, fiftyish man named Ken Milton, told me upon my hiring. But for now, the starting pay, combined with the amount of gas I needed to get to and from work, meant that I had to stay at home and live with my parents, at least for a few months until I can save up to find my own place.

Eventually, I was able to find an apartment and strike out on my own. I found an apartment located in the southern part of Ontario, on the corner of Sultana Avenue and Nevada Street. I moved in in February of 2016, after several months of searching. After nearly giving up, as most listings were far too expensive, I stumbled upon this apartment, which had, by far, the cheapest rent of any listing in the area. It was a two-story apartment complex, with eight units, located in an old tan building with cracks on the side. I was absolutely lucky to be able to find this apartment, even if it was located in a neighborhood that did not have the nicest reputation. Despite having the cheapest rent around, I still struggled to make ends meet. I made enough for my rent, my utilities, my gas, and my food and household items, but not a whole lot else. I had to make do with fewer leisure activities than I was used to. My parents still paid my phone bill for the time being, and my dad would gladly help me out if I had some unexpected expense, a luxury that many in my station did not have. Despite my struggles, I considered myself one of the lucky ones. I scrounged up a few furniture items on the cheap, as my mom was always on those buying and selling groups online, and my parents gave me their old bed and couch, so my apartment was fully furnished. At long last, I was on my own.

Due to economic conditions being what they are during this time, it was increasingly difficult for people to get ahead in life, especially in my age group, folks who are just starting out in life and trying to build lives for themselves. I was no exception to that reality of the times. Many of my fellow recent college graduates would continue to live at home, simply because starting out in life was much harder that it was for our parents’ or grandparents’ generations. The job market was tougher for us, one couldn’t just graduate from high school and get a factory job or other decent entry-level job, as many of them were downsized or moved away to some faraway land. One now had to obtain a college degree to have any hope of a decent job with opportunities for advancement in pay, and college costs in the few decades before the Collapse had soared to the point where many students had to take on massive amounts of debt in order to complete their studies, with many students owing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time they graduated. By 2015, total college debt in the United States had totalled over one trillion dollars, and was rapidly rising. This debt would prove to be an impediment for many, as debt payments ate up an increasingly large portion of college grads’ paychecks, money that could have gone to buy a house, or start a business, or start a family, or save for retirement. My generation, which was often derided as lazy or entitled or whiny  by older generations of Americans, was more highly educated than those who came before us, but we were actually paid less. As a result, many of us had to continue living with parents after college, or had to live with other relatives or with roommates in order to have housing, as housing costs rose far faster than wages in most of the country. As conditions worsened for most in this country, my generation was facing many challenges when entering adulthood as the economic ladder became tougher to climb. The economic prospects for the vast majority of Americans during this time seemed to be getting worse by the year. But even so, they couldn’t have imagined how much worse they would soon get.

As the years passed, more of the ideals and programs that formed the backbone of the broad-based prosperity came under attack by Republicans. They fought to chip away at the ideals of fairness and helping others, their selfish ideology took hold in every corner of the party, which gained a complete stranglehold in large portions of the country, especially in the South, Midwest, and Mountain West regions of the United States. More who held conservative economic beliefs were elected at all levels of power. The Republicans (and their opposing party, the Democrats to a lesser extent) worked to loosen government regulations that were meant to prevent businesses from taking advantage of their employees, as well as loosening rules that kept banks and other financial institutions from engaging in risky behaviors with their depositor’s money, behaviors that had caused great harm to the economy in the past. On top of all this, an attack on social programs, which were derided by conservatives as the “welfare state” or “big government”, began as various anti-poverty programs were cut, some of them to the bone, to the misfortune of the millions of Americans who relied on these programs to stay afloat.

All of this was made possible by a concerted effort by the conservatives to convince many voters that, instead of being there to help people, the government was actually the enemy. This in itself was a profound shift in attitudes, as people had generally seen the government as trustworthy and there to help in the past. Voters became convinced by the large and quickly-growing right-wing media apparatus (which was well-funded by the elites, as well as a plethora of conservative organizations) that their fellow citizens who had received any help from the government were just “lazy moochers” who were somehow stealing from them, and were undeserving of help. Conservatives created this giant media empire, which spanned thousands of radio stations, and even television networks (the main one being Fox News, launched in 1996) to win the hearts of minds of the citizenry. Wealthy conservatives bought up and maintained their media apparatus in order to proliferate their worldview to the masses, to seize control of the narrative. They engaged in a concerted effort to demonize and even dehumanize the poor, which intensified as the country turned more to the right. Conservatives also villainized the government, with outrageous claims that people were losing their freedoms because the government kept people from starving or ending up homeless or dead from something that was entirely treatable. To the right, less government meant more freedom. They succeeded beyond their dreams, as many middle-class and working class individuals were now consistently voting against their own best interests, convinced that if they were given more of this so-called freedom, they too can join the ranks of the wealthy. Too bad it didn’t actually work that way, as the policies implemented just funneled more and more wealth to the rich, the story of Robin Hood in reverse, if you will. The Republicans managed to convince the American public that they were the party that best managed the economy, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. After all, many studies showed that Democrats performed better than Republicans on various economic measures, such as economic growth, the unemployment rate, even stock market returns.

And that conservative media messaging was insidious in another way: It got their followers to turn against those who struggled most. Conservatives developed a deeply hostile attitude against those who needed help in one way or another, whether it be by government programs, or sometimes even private charity. Conservative media constantly derided those who were struggling, and you can see that indoctrination manifest in ugly ways. Plenty of conservatives felt the need to call out those “lazy bums” who used welfare benefits. This occurred in public, with people yelling at or mocking those who used anti-poverty funds to buy food or other goods. Righties snubbed their noses publicly at those who needed help. But mostly, I saw this online, in the form of conservatives posting comments or pictures complaining about “their tax dollars” paying for others to live without working. I saw several members of my own family do this, to the point where I had to remove them as “friends” on Facebook. I couldn’t have that crap on my page anymore. And, of course, arguing with conservatives was generally pointless. Like always, no amount of facts and logic could sway them.

On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Party was, for decades, seen by many as the party that looked out for the little guy. They fought for the labor protections and the social programs that helped the poor and middle class, and stood up and fought with the corporate world, which wanted nothing to do with paying better wages to their workers, or paying more in taxes. The actions of the Democrats from the 1930’s to the 1970’s had lessened the disparity in income between the classes, helped workers organize and demand better treatment from their employers, increased wages for everyone, and created a huge middle class. The result was a more widely-shared prosperity which lasted for years, an economy where fewer people were left behind. However, to compete in elections after the shift towards the political right in American society, the Democrats felt the need to go along and move somewhat to the right as well, at least when it came to economic issues. Sure, they threw the masses a bone here and there in the form of an increase in the minimum wage a worker could be paid (which used to go up regularly, but now only was raised about once or twice a decade, due to Republican opposition), or some new law to protect women or the natural environment, but they too largely went along with the corporate agenda. Presidents from both parties passed the aforementioned trade agreements, and loosened restrictions on businesses, which enriched a few at the expense of many others. Furthermore, the Democrats started to receive funding for elections from many of the same corporate sources that the Republicans had been getting money from for many years.

Due to all of the changes in the laws, as well as a new focus in the business community on making as much profit as possible, at all costs, most Americans started falling behind. Wages were stagnant, and benefits became less generous, even though corporate profits and stock prices skyrocketed during this time. To grow their own profits further, companies would engage in more job cutting, and more outsourcing, anything to reduce their costs as much as possible. There was also a rush towards consolidation in many economic sectors, as businesses merged constantly, meaning the largest companies became more dominant than they had in many years, with some firms even gaining near-monopoly status in their fields. During this time, the wealthiest individuals did incredibly well, as they began amassing much larger fortunes than ever before. There was more wealth than ever, the rich were just keeping it for themselves. As a result, the lower income groups did not do as well. The middle class saw their incomes stay the same, and the poor actually saw their incomes drop dramatically.

The far-right movement also got a shot in the arm starting in 2009, when the economy was at its lowest. They were energized by a group of conservative activists calling themselves the Tea Party. The Tea Party, which stood for “Taxed Enough Already” (and conveniently ignoring that taxes were actually at their lowest rates in decades), took the anger of far-right citizens at a government that they perceived to not represent them, and used it to energize the conservative movement. This group espoused the far-right economic views that the Republican Party was increasingly adopting. Various Tea Party groups that popped up all over the nation relentlessly attacked what they called “big government”, believing that the government needed to spend far less and be significantly smaller, essentially echoing what the Republicans had been saying more and more over the previous thirty years. Many members of these groups, which felt the need to add words like “patriot”, “liberty”, or “freedom” to their names (presumably to make themselves sound more American), wanted to reduce or eliminate many government programs, especially anti-poverty programs. This was despite the fact that a good portion of these people were elderly, and used government programs such as Social Security (a program which provided money to seniors who have retired, money that they and their employers put into the system via payroll taxes), and Medicare (a health insurance program for elderly Americans). Conveniently, many of these Tea Partiers wanted to protect the programs that they themselves benefited from, while ending the programs that helped others. It was selfishness at its worst. On top of all this, the movement was also a welcome home for the racist and sexist elements of the right wing. Surely many, but of course not all, members made racist appeals, once again attacking President Barack Obama (who happened to be our first African-American President) and using all manner of racist slurs and imagery at their rallies and in their Internet postings.

One other thing the Tea Party loved to claim that it was a grassroots movement. They boasted that they were a populist movement, full of regular folks who just wanted to change the system to make the government more sound, and more protective of their freedom. However, this was not a reality. The various Tea Party organizations sprouted from groups who received their funding from very wealthy individuals. Millionaires and billionaires were bankrolling these groups to advance their own selfish interests, to lower their taxes and allow their fortunes to grow even bigger. Many very wealthy people wanted to shrink the government drastically, so as to reduce the amount of taxes that they had to pay. Billionaires felt no need for there to be things as Social Security, Medicare, welfare assistance such as food stamps (money given to low-income people which can only be used to purchase food), cash assistance, housing assistance, among many other programs. After all, they personally had no need for any of that stuff. These same super-wealthy people also wished to wipe out any sort of regulation of their businesses, so they could pay their workers whatever they wanted, work those workers as hard as they wanted, and pollute the environment as much as they wanted.

The most prominent of these super-wealthy individuals were the billionaire industrialists Richard and Chuck Reed. The Reed brothers, who had amassed fortunes in the tens of billions of dollars each from running a vast industrial empire they inherited from their father, had an agenda to completely wipe out the nation’s social safety net. They argued that the government had no business providing any sort of help to the less fortunate, or in regulating businesses in any way (which also meant doing away with environmental laws, workplace safety laws, and minimum wage laws). The Reeds gleefully gave vast amounts of money to Tea Party groups, seeing that these groups can draw people to their cause, and further advance their agenda. They incorporated dozens of Tea Party groups into their already-vast network of political advocacy groups, a network that ranged from advocacy and lobbying on a wide range of issues to economic policy to legal policy to donations to political candidates. .

The Republican Party, which had been reeling after their recent defeats in the polls in both 2006 and 2008, successfully channeled the anger of the Tea Party members to come roaring back, and also to become more extremist than ever. During the 2010 election cycle, the Republicans used this riled-up, angry base to their advantage. I remember watching the news, and seeing the scenes of the rallies, with mostly middle-aged and elderly white folks yelling and vowing to “take their country back”. Some of these rallies were marked by violent, racist and sexist rhetoric, which made them look intolerant, as surely many of them were. I also remember that they would attend meetings called townhalls where various members of Congress talked to their constituents about the issues, with the sole purpose of disrupting the meeting and shouting down the lawmaker, for the unforgivable sin of disagreeing with them. There was no interest on their part for a civil debate, and anybody who did not agree with their agenda was a traitor to America in their eyes. I will admit that the partisan bickering had been growing worse on all sides in recent years, but the Tea Partiers took it to a whole new level entirely. They even turned their anger towards fellow conservatives who dared to work with their opposition and find common ground, ousting a number of Republicans and replacing them with someone further right.

Most importantly, these angry and energized voters got out and organized, and using the money from their superrich benefactors (who, because of the disastrous 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, could now donate as much money as they wanted to political causes), caused a massive Republican wave at the polls. Not only that, the Republican Party recruited many Tea Party members to run for political office, filling not only Congress, but also many state legislatures and governor’s offices, with far-right ideologues. Using right-wing energy, as well as growing dissatisfaction with the Democrats and President Obama, mainly over the still very weak economy, the Republicans made their biggest gains in many years. The Republican Party regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, and made big gains in the Senate, which was the upper house. They also made huge gains in state legislatures all over the country, and won several state governorships. In just a couple of years, all of the political momentum in the United States shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Now with more power, and having a much more far-right wing composition than before, the Republicans set out to implement their agenda starting in 2011. They ran in the 2010 elections on a platform of creating jobs during the weak economy, but all they wanted to do was to try to shrink the government as much as possible, and to fulfill some of the wishes of the deeply religious voters who helped vote them in regarding social issues as abortion and opposing gay rights. They began to try to dramatically slash various programs in the social safety net, but that line of attack was limited by the establishment members of the Republican Party. The party establishment still controlled the leadership positions in the party, and remained somewhat more politically moderate than the far-right rabble rousers who made up a far larger portion of their ranks than before. To be sure, the leadership wanted to cut the programs too, but they realized that doing so to the extent the new Tea Party members of Congress wanted to would be politically poisonous, and would cause a huge backlash among the voters, causing them to lose their newfound gains and give control back to the Democrats. After all, the establishment cared more about power than ideology. Nonetheless, there were some spending cuts made starting in 2011, with some more, somewhat steeper cuts to come in later years. Also, the Republicans drew a line on new spending, opposing any new proposals, whether it was a jobs program the Democrats pushed (with unemployment still high), or housing aid (while foreclosures were still piling up), or help for military veterans (when many veterans were struggling) or even aid to individuals or city or state governments that were hit by natural disasters, such as when the east coast was hit by a huge storm in the fall of 2012, or when various midwestern towns were torn apart by tornadoes on several occasions. Yet, for all the attacks on the safety net, as well as the vitriol directed to it and those who use it, it was actually still pretty popular among the general population. You see, many people like knowing that they, or their friends, family members or neighbors can get help from the government when they need it the most, and even though the programs weren’t perfect, they did keep millions of people out of poverty, about thirty million according to an academic study. So surely it was important to most to maintain a safety net to help those in their time of need.

Even though polls show that the various government anti-poverty programs were rather popular with the people, that didn’t stop the rhetoric against them from intensifying to levels not seen before. Various right-wing lawmakers (many of them recently elected who won using Tea Party support), as well as many right-wing radio and television commentators came at the safety net harder than ever. Despite the fact that the vast majority of those who used the programs came from working families, were elderly or were disabled (statistics backed this up), that didn’t stop the right wing from deriding those individuals as “lazy” and “undeserving of help”. Conservative outlets liked to beat the drum that the poor “had it easy”, because they had basic appliances or televisions. Yes, being able to refrigerate or cook food meant they really didn’t need help, at least according to that asinine talking point. A few commentators even compared receiving government assistance to slavery, claiming that the recipient was now dependent on the government, and now couldn’t make it on their own now, another claim that was complete rubbish, as studies showed that the majority of people who used anti-poverty programs got off them fairly quickly.

As the years passed, and the far-right gained more power, these attacks became increasingly common. With larger numbers of conservatives in Congress, and with their voices amplified by the right-wing media apparatus, the conservative narrative became ever more pervasive. I noticed it from going on the internet, and from conversations from various members of my family who had succumbed to the rhetoric. I had plenty of cousins and aunts and uncles who fell for these right-wing claims, as I would hear them during family gatherings or see them on the Internet. I sure tried my hardest to debunk the claims, but sometimes, all the facts and logic simply weren’t enough. No matter how hard I would try sometimes, the right-wing media machine was too strong, and held people under its sway. It sure hurt that my own family members would shun me simply over having different views as them (like a couple of them did), but it didn’t cause me to change my views at all.

With the Republican Party drifting further and further to the right, as well as a growing split in the party itself, the United States government began to grow more dysfunctional. See, these newly empowered far-right ideologues had no interest in any sort of compromise, as they sought ideological purity, at all costs. Since their narrative rests on the concept that government doesn’t work, causing dysfunction actually helped their cause. If they underfunded a program, and its effectiveness dropped, they could then go “see, the government is broken!”, and many wouldn’t even notice that it was broken because conservatives broke it. Compromise with the Democrats was seen as treason to these folks, and any Republican, even if they were a conservative, became a target of Tea Party groups if they reached across the aisle to get anything done. As a result, performing simple tasks which were done easily before in a bipartisan fashion, such as funding the government or raising the debt ceiling (allowing the government to borrow more money than a certain limit), had now become like pulling teeth. The far-right wing of the Republican Party felt the need to extract demands from everyone else before allowing these vital functions to be done. Tea Party groups also targeted Republicans that were deemed as not conservative enough. They had success kicking out several long-serving Republican members of Congress and replacing them with people who agreed more with them. As a result of this more conservative slant, there were various standoffs between these hardline extremists and the Obama administration, as well as with the leadership of their own party. Though the standoffs were about various issues, the biggest was about the signature accomplishment of the Obama administration, which was a health care reform bill. Though the health care law was far from perfect, and was a corporate giveaway in some ways, the law did help millions of Americans obtain health insurance who previously had no health coverage at all (for full disclosure, I was one of those people, I could now stay on my parent’s insurance longer, once they got insurance again). Nonetheless, conservatives saw this bill, as well as almost everything else President Obama did, as an affront to individual liberty, as if America was somehow becoming some kind of totalitarian state because poor people were getting health coverage. A constant state of fear, mixed with the greed of the wealthy and the business world, drove this new, highly corrosive brand of politics. These politicians, with their extreme voter base, right-wing think tanks, and a vast array of right-wing radio stations and Fox News Channel on their side, stood firm in their mission to remake the United States in their image. Even though their actions did cause the United States to have its credit downgraded in 2011, and even caused the federal government to partially shut down in the fall of 2013, the right wingers in Congress were undeterred. They had no problems taking hostages in an attempt to achieve their ends. The credit downgrade came from conservatives wanting more cuts in government spending than even the leaders of the Republican Party wanted. The shutdown came from conservatives demanding the repeal of the health care reform law, which they had unsuccessfully tried to repeal dozens of times over the course of several years. On top of those stunts, the right wing also stopped any further attempts at positive reform by the Obama administration, including various bills meant to try to spur job growth, as well as raise the minimum wage, which meant that many low-wage workers fell further behind, as prices rose, but their pay did not.  

Also distressingly, but receiving less attention, was the fact that similar trends were also taking place in other wealthy nations as well. The years before the Great Collapse did see a turn towards the political right in previously left-leaning areas around the world, as conservative parties took power due to voter dissatisfaction with the economic downturn. These conservatives used similar strategies as the Republicans of the United States, through convincing everyday people that the government was out to get them, that left-wing policies were to blame for the worldwide economic downturn. Also, just like the conservatives here, they used appeals to racism to draw people to their side, as many of the right-wing parties of Europe were even more virulently anti-immigrant than the Republicans here in the United States. They always found some scapegoat on which to blame various problems that society was facing. Observers seemed shocked that such racist rhetoric worked so well, especially in European nations that were perceived as more tolerant of different races and religions. The results when right-wing parties gained power bore a resemblance of what happened here years before. Nations paring back on the help that their governments gave their less fortunate, and other policies that harmed various groups.

As the calendar flipped to the year 2015, it was time for the 2016 presidential race to start firing up. One feature of American politics, especially when it came to presidential politics, was that the cycle started far before any votes were actually cast, over a year and a half before, in fact. Various senators and state governors, as well as some former officeholders and even a few people who have never held any sort of political office before, made their decisions as to whether to jump into the intense atmosphere of a presidential campaign. They formed committees to test the waters, they hired staff, and started raising money and making visits to the states that vote first in the party primaries. After two full terms with Barack Obama in the White House, the Republicans were itching to recapture the presidency. They were feeling pretty confident, with President Obama’s approval ratings not being that great, and also the fact that the Republicans just had another great election in 2014, winning more seats in Congress and throughout state legislatures. Despite all their childish antics over the previous few years, and the fact that they had become more conservative than ever, they used a massive wave of campaign cash and played off people’s anger over the direction of the country and the weak economic recovery to give the Republicans an even bigger advantage in Congress. They retook control of the U.S. Senate, and added to their lead in the House of Representatives, giving them their biggest advantages in that lawmaking body in 85 years. The last time they had numbers like this in Congress, their ultra-conservative policies caused the Great Depression, causing voters to vote them out in droves and ushering in an era of dominance for the Democratic Party, which led to the beginnings of the creation of safety net programs designed to improve people’s lives. Nonetheless, once the new Congress came in in January of 2015, they set out a new, more conservative course. Yes, more conservative than before, which was a scary thought to many people throughout the nation, such as myself.

Like I said before, over the last few election cycles, the delegation of the Republican Party had become much more extreme than in previous years. Feeling emboldened, they demanded that Congress enact more of their agenda than before. The newly expanded far-right caucus of the Republican Party intensified their fight to wrest control of the party from the Republican establishment. They wanted more of their agenda put in place, more opposition on social issues, more cuts in government spending. Within several months, the far-right would claim control in the House of Representatives, as Republican Speaker of the House (the leader of that legislative body) John Boehner of Ohio announced his resignation from Congress in September of 2015. The Speaker of the House since 2011, Boehner committed the cardinal sin in far-right circles, which was reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats. He wanted to prevent another government shutdown in the fall of 2015. He was also known for working with President Obama on issues such as deficit reduction. Starting in 2015, as the far-right gained more power, every single function of the government, especially functions that involved funding, became even more of a drawn-out battle. Things like highway funding, or the food stamp program, or even Social Security checks for disabled individuals, came into the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers. Some even spoke out against the minimum wage, which had helped the lowest-paid workers since the 1930’s, calling for its elimination. It seemed nothing was safe anymore. Programs or laws that the Republicans wouldn’t dare to try to touch in the past were now targeted for cuts or sometimes even elimination. It seemed to many observers that, if the program helped regular people, the Republicans opposed it. This was just like the corporate world liked it. And it was why their backers kept writing the huge campaign checks and dumping money into the political action committees. They were so close to their ultimate goal, they could almost taste it.

The infighting between hard-line conservatives and the Republican establishment came to a head in the aftermath of Boehner’s resignation. During the fall of 2015, before Boehner left his office, he negotiated one last budget deal with Democratic Congressional leaders and President Obama. He had gotten some concessions on Social Security and Medicare, and got some increases in the defense budget, but also reversed some budget cuts the Republicans won a couple of years earlier. Of course, far-right members of Congress, as well as various conservative groups, were livid. Many of these individuals wanted to secure bigger cuts in social programs, threatening another shutdown of the government if they did not get their way. In the wake of the budget deal, which was struck in the final week of October 2015, Tea Party members, including a group of far-right conservative House members now calling themselves the House Freedom Caucus, vowed to play a bigger role the next time the budget came up, as this deal ran up to early in 2017, not long after a new president was to take office. Tea Party organizations such as FreedomNow and Americans for Liberty vowed to work with these far-right congress members to assert their will in Washington. If far-right conservatives were to gain power, they would implement the policies they had long championed. And they now had control of much of the federal government. All they needed now was the presidency.

Now that the Republicans made these gains in Congress, and felt poised to get their wishes in major policy battles, they now set their sights on winning the White House in 2016. Many Republican politicians jumped at the opportunity at taking the highest office in the land, as a whopping eighteen Republicans declared their candidacies. Yes, eighteen. The bigger names ranged from U.S. Senators such as Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, to state governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and younger brother of President Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Even a couple of non-politicians jumped into the fray, most notably the bombastic real-estate mogul Donald Trump. Like a typical presidential race, most of the early coverage revolved around the big-name candidates, while not saying much at all about the lesser-known candidates. This was a normal occurrence for both parties, as the well-known candidates always got extra media coverage, and their connections led to more fundraising and more ads aired by their campaigns.

Looking to maintain their hold on the presidency, the Democratic Party put forth a few candidates of their own for what was sure to be a hard-fought race. The Democratic field included the biggest name candidate of them all, former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton, who was seeking to be the nation’s very first woman president, was the odds-on favorite to be the Democratic candidate. There was nobody else in the Democratic field with even close to her name recognition or her fundraising ability, so it would be an uphill battle for anyone who tried to run against her. Other candidates included Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator from Vermont who drew a passionate following among more liberal, as well as younger, voters. Sanders, a grey-haired, grandfatherly Jewish man who originally hailed from Brooklyn, New York, was very inspirational to his base of supporters, as many people, including myself, felt that he had the best ideas of them all. His agenda was the exact opposite of the right-wing agenda, which was refreshing to those of us who felt that the growing inequality in society was a huge problem. Tackling that inequality was the main part of his campaign platform, as he campaigned as someone who was truly on the side of everyday people. He advocated for greatly expanding social safety net programs, for making college tuition free, for raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars from its current seven dollars and twenty-five cents, a huge jobs program which would rebuild American infrastructure, and expanding the Medicare healthcare program from senior citizens to everybody, among many other things. His bold agenda was seen by many as the antidote to our nation’s ills, an agenda that would bring a wide-based prosperity and dramatically reduce poverty.

There was one other viable candidate in the Democratic field, a U.S. Representative from Maryland named Robert Morrison, who also quickly became incredibly popular among liberals, but was also accepted by some establishment figures as well, something that help him greatly in the long run. Both Sanders and Morrison had relatively little name recognition, and were at a huge monetary disadvantage versus Clinton. Clinton also had the backing of virtually all the establishment of the Democratic Party. It seemed insurmountable for any other candidate, but both Sanders and Morrison did gain traction, as Clinton was bogged down by the perception that she was too corporate-friendly, as well as too wishy-washy on the issues. She had a reputation for changing her mind on issues frequently, which led many to not trust her. What got the most attention in the early going, though, was a scandal revolving around emails she sent during her time as Secretary of State (the person who talked to leaders of other countries). By the fall of 2015, it looked as though the Democrats would actually have a two- or even three-way race on their hands. This was in contrast to the expected Clinton cakewalk that everyone anticipated at the outset.

One man on the Republican side who was mostly overlooked at first, who epitomized the growing conservatism of this era, was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee named David Harris. Born on April 10, 1969, he was a tall man with ruggedly handsome looks, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He was the proud owner of a small grocery store in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, before being recruited by the local Tea Party group he was a prominent member of to run for a hotly contested Senate seat in his home state in 2010, the first Republican wave election. Being a small business owner, and a devout Southern Baptist, he fit the prototype that would appeal to economic, as well as to religious conservatives. Using a war chest of funding from local corporate executives, as well as millions in funding from outside groups located far from Tennessee, he toppled an establishment Republican candidate in the primary (where each party picks its candidate for the general election), before easily taking down the Democratic candidate in the general election (the Democrats largely wrote off large swathes of the country, to their own peril). Harris had always had an interest in conservative politics, but never considered a political career until catching the Tea Party fever in 2009, when he joined the ranks of the upstart movement. They clearly shared his vision of what America should be. He was well known in far-right circles, and the right-wing media crowned him “the most conservative member of Congress”. Magazines like the National Review and American Conservative published fawning reviews about Harris, and he became a mainstay on Fox News and right-wing talk radio. However, he wasn’t particularly well-known by a large swath of the American population.

Once he took office in January 2011, an office he was somewhat shocked to hold, he quietly espoused his deeply conservative beliefs. He joined the newly-formed Tea Party Caucus (a group of far-right members of Congress) right after he started in the Senate. On several occasions, he voted against Republican budget plans, because they didn’t go far enough for him. He published his own budget plan with a few of his Senate and House colleagues, which called for massive cuts in spending and balanced the budget, but that didn’t go anywhere, since Harris frequently butted heads with members of the party leadership. Another reason that Senator Harris didn’t get as much attention as some of the other candidates was, unlike many of his fellow conservatives, he avoided the verbal bomb-throwing that grabbed headlines for other lawmakers. He never bashed his critics, he never accused Democrats of tyranny or treason and he never openly questioned President Obama’s citizenship. Harris also never said anything that could be classified as racist or sexist, at least not publicly, while his fellow righties sure loved saying offensive stuff. It was often the people who said the most outrageous, most horrifying things that got the media attention, such as his fellow Senator Ted Cruz, or the billionaire Donald Trump. While his lack of headline-grabbing quotes kept him from being into the spotlight until he jumped into the presidential race, it also kept him from turning off entire segments of voters, like a lot of his fellow candidates.

David Harris announced his candidacy in June of 2015, making his declaration in front of the city hall in Knoxville, Tennessee. “It is time for the United States of America to return to the ideals of the great men who founded it, ideas of personal liberty and a limited government that protects that liberty. I want an America where every man can be whatever he wants, where hard work pays off, where one is truly free.” Harris said when declaring his candidacy to a small, but enthusiastic crowd of supporters on that warm, sunny June day. Within a couple of months of vigorous campaigning, he had begun to gain traction among very conservative voters, who were enthralled with his big ideas. The Harris campaign quickly built up an army of right-wing activists from all over the country who were eager to work for the campaign, making phone calls, knocking on doors, passing out flyers, passionately argue for him in various forums such as newspapers and on the Internet. By August, he had the most campaign volunteers in all the early primary states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire, and he became a fundraising juggernaut who could compete with the more well-heeled candidates. These folks on the far right end of the political spectrum were the most passionate, and were the ones most likely to stump for their candidate, as well as the most likely to get out and vote in the Republican primaries. Harris’ big selling point, which always made its way into his stump speeches all along the campaign trail, was his vow to balance the federal budget in his first year in office, and keep it balanced every year afterwards. “Sound fiscal policy starts with a balanced budget. We need to get our financial house in order, by stopping reckless spending in all its forms. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is off the table!” Harris would tell his raucous and rapidly growing crowds. Analysts from both the left and right bashed this balanced budget proposal as unrealistic, as it would involve budget cuts on a level never seen before. “Harris’ balanced budget proposals would flatline the economy for a long time to come. I think that not even Republicans would go along with this proposal of his.” Said a report from the centrist Brookings Institute. “David Harris has supported budget plans that would cut spending by over a trillion dollars in the first year alone, and that is surely what he means when he talks about immediately balancing the budget if elected President. Cuts of that magnitude would have a catastrophic effect on the U.S. economy. We’re talking about millions of jobs lost and trillions shaved off our GDP. Not to mention the unnecessary suffering brought about by the cuts. Millions of people would lose badly-needed aid.” The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute declared. Harris himself usually made a point to never say exactly how he would balance the budget, since what he would say would turn off anyone outside of his far-right base. Other than the broad platitudes about cutting spending, he wouldn’t say exactly what would be cut.

Early in David Harris’ candidacy, most observers dismissed his chances. At the outset, he had the lowest national profile of any of the GOP prospects. He was well-known and well-liked by the conservative base, but was an unknown to most everyone else. As a result, the pundits mostly shrugged him off. The American Prospect, a left-leaning publication, referred to him as “quaint, but a whackaloon nonetheless. Even many Republicans would be turned off by him.” The Nation said “He has nowhere near the backing and star power needed to secure the party nomination. He may be rising in the polls now, but he’ll flame out quickly enough. Furthermore, he would be the most conservative nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964. And we all know how that turned out.” Even parts of the Republican media gave him little chance. “He is nowhere near ready. David Harris has his fiery base, but he needs a lot more than that to propel him to the finish line…..And he would need to moderate some of his positions if he wants to win a national election.” Remarked a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

On top of his balanced budget promise, Harris came under fire, primarily from left-leaning media outlets, for statements he had made while running for the Senate, calling for the elimination of the minimum wage. Harris addressed that head on, reiterating his desire to get rid of any wage floor. “A Constitutionally limited government has no right whatsoever to regulate wages, or any other aspects of business. Wages are to be set by employers, at a rate they find reasonable.” Harris would say. Harris gave several speeches on the issue, repeating the common claim on the right that the minimum wage actually hurts low-wage workers, that it caused employers to reduce the number of people they employed. Despite the fact that many minimum wage studies proved raising the minimum wage was quite helpful, putting money into the pockets of millions of individuals with little to no effect on employment, more and more Republicans called for the end of the minimum wage, including more members of Congress, as well as several of the Republican candidates for President. Senator Harris also got in trouble for making the false, but common claim that Social Security and Medicare contribute to the federal deficit. When called out on this, Harris backtracked, but still insisted that these programs needed to be reformed and cut dramatically. Harris was also known for denying the existence of climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels, and had the standard social conservative policies that most Republicans held. He opposed abortion (the termination of a pregnancy) in all instances, he opposed marriage for same-sex couples, and he often spoke of his devout evangelical Christian faith on the campaign trail. Between his stances on economic issues and his stances on social issues, there was plenty to not like about David Harris.

 Despite the controversy around his past statements, and the many criticisms of his policy proposals, Harris continued to rise in the polls, and now was challenging the much better-known candidates on a national level. He now had the far-right base on his side. If he were to get the full support of this very passionate voting bloc, he would actually have a chance, his supporters would say. The Harris campaign gained more steam in August, with a strong performance in the first debate of the primary season. The first debate between the Republican presidential candidates was the most-watched primary debate ever, due to the meteoric rise of the billionaire Donald Trump, who had shot up to the top of the polls after some controversial, and frankly very racist statements he had made about Latinos. Trump gained a lot of support among the Republican base, as much of the base held very deeply anti-immigrant sentiments. Trump played to the mostly white, nativist voters to the point where he was getting thirty percent of the vote, which was amazing, considering it was a field of eighteen candidates. However, David Harris made his case for a much smaller government in the debate, which surely appealed to the Republican primary voters. While the other politicians on that crowded debate stage seemed interchangeable, with highly similar proposals and beliefs, Harris came off as different, more genuine to those who viewed the debate. Just like during his campaign speeches, Harris always spoke in terms of freedom. He always claimed that his policies would make America freer, that they allowed individuals to forge their own destiny and take responsibility for their own lives, free from any outside interference, especially from the federal government. Though any glance at a history book proved this viewpoint to be total hogwash, it really appealed to the conservative voters who would pick their candidate in several months. Various talking heads in the right-wing media were ecstatic with Harris’ debate performance, claiming him the undisputed winner. They saw that they finally had the guy who was going to lead them to the promised land, and give them everything they have wanted for decades. Conservative talk radio did nothing but sing his praises, and would continue to do so, as he was now the favorite candidate of most of the talk show hosts. Media sources, both left and right, were cranking out articles about him. The National Review, a popular right-wing magazine, dubbed David Harris “The Chosen One” in a glowing article about him, and how he was the future of the conservative movement. Left-wing media saw him as “out of touch”, “unfit for office”, “completely crazy”, and as a website named Salon put it, “a clear and present danger”. In the wake of that first debate, I saw him as a growing presence in the Republican primary, and though I did feel that his proposals were dangerous, he should be taken seriously (one thing my fellow lefties liked to do was completely dismiss a crazy-sounding conservative candidate, then act shocked when said crazy candidate won the election). After that first debate, David Harris emerged as the guy who seemed most likely to stop Donald Trump dead in his tracks. He shot up to fifteen or so percent in the polls immediately after the debate, in second place behind Trump. This, of course, drew Trump’s ire. He had a tendency to bash his competitors on the campaign trail, coming up with nicknames for each candidate. Trump began referring to David Harris as “Dumb Dave”. “Dumb Dave says he’s gonna balance the budget.” Donald Trump would bellow to his supporters at his rallies. “You know how he’s gonna do that? By cutting your Social Security and Medicare! I will not cut Social Security or Medicare. Dumb Dave thinks he can get away with that!” He yelled as the crowd jeered.

The debate allowed Harris to make his case to voters who had never really seen or heard about him before, and many of them liked what they heard from him. The momentum continued for Harris in the following months, his campaign events drew bigger and bigger crowds, full of people who shared his beliefs, and after a few more of these strong debate performances, Harris climbed in the polls throughout 2015. By the time the calendar flipped to 2016, and the primaries neared, he was near or at the top in every poll that was put out by the numerous polling organizations. It was around this time that progressives, and some centrists started realizing that this kook actually had a chance to win it all. Many editorials and lead stories on various left-wing magazines and websites revolved around a central theme: David Harris must be stopped, at all costs. If he were to win, it could spell doom for our great nation.

On top of his appeal to the right-wing base, there were other forces at work behind David Harris’ rise. He got a huge push from some big-money backers, using the new climate of political finance. The disastrous Supreme Court decision in a case known as the Citizens United case in 2010 paved the way for the wealthy, as well as huge corporations, to give unlimited amounts of money to candidates and political causes. They could give to a group called a Super PAC (political action committee), which was supposed to not coordinate with the official campaign. Despite that restriction, the group can put out as many ads in the mail and on TV as they wanted, supporting the candidate or cause of their choice. Though both parties raised plenty of money this way, the Republicans benefited much more from the new rules, being the party that helped the wealthy and all. Within just a few months, Harris’ Super PAC, which was called Restoring American Freedom, had raised huge sums from a few billionaires (most Super PAC funding came from a handful of super wealthy individuals), including Harold Norton (a Texas oil billionaire), James Helton (a Wyoming discount store magnate), and most prominently, the Reed brothers. The Reed brothers had made a bold statement at the outset of the campaign season, saying that they were going to raise and spend over one billion dollars (yes, that’s billion, with a “b”) for conservative candidates, with most of that money going to the Republican presidential candidate. The Reeds were going to pour money into the campaigns of the candidates who, if elected, work to implement their agenda. Though the Reed brothers said they wouldn’t choose or donate to any candidates during the primaries, they found David Harris to be exactly what they were looking for. They had been following Harris’ career in the Senate (they also donated a few million to his Senate campaign in 2010), and voiced their support for his balanced budget proposal from a few years earlier, which he kept submitting every year. Once he seemed to be a viable candidate in the presidential race, the Reeds knew they had their man. Harris shared their far-right vision for America, and their passion to put this vision into action. As a result, the Reeds gave Harris 100 million dollars in early September 2015, followed by another 50 million dollars in December, less than two months before the primary season kicked off. Between the Reeds, and their fellow millionaires and billionaires, David Harris now had the most campaign cash working for him. By the end of 2015, Restoring American Freedom had raised over 350 million dollars, more than enough to get Harris through the rough-and-tumble primary season. Most of the Republican candidates had one or two ultra-wealthy folks propping them up, except for Donald Trump, who was financing his own campaign for the most part, combined with small donations from his formidable support base. Harris, however, had at least four, and possibly more, since the donors of these Super PAC funds could stay anonymous if they liked. Several of the national Tea Party groups also endorsed Harris early on in the race, sending mailers and airing ads imploring their supporters to back the Harris campaign. This gave Harris another boost, as Tea Partiers all over America were now showering the Harris Campaign with donations. Not only did Harris have the most Super PAC money, he was now bringing in the most in regular donations than any Republican candidate, as he was now pulling in plenty of small and medium-sized donations as well.

The primary season for both major parties finally began on Monday, February 1, 2016, with the Iowa Caucuses. Iowa was a predominantly rural midwestern state (now part of the Dominion), but despite their relatively small population, they relished their outsized influence as the first state to cast their votes in every presidential election. Before the primaries, the candidates usually crisscross the state for months, meeting voters, and participating in fundraisers. Now it’s time to actually start the process of picking the candidates who would square off in the general election in November. Going into the Iowa Caucuses, both parties had tight races brewing. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton led in the national polls, with Robert Morrison quickly closing the gap, and even taking the lead in some of the early states. By the time Iowans voted, only a few percentage points separated the two nationally. For the Republicans, David Harris had a small, but growing lead over Donald Trump, who remained popular despite bashing, in no particular order, Latinos, African-Americans, women, Muslims and the disabled. Trump continued to poll well, even after calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., something that his supporters cheered, but almost everyone else was appalled by. Despite not having much in the way of substantive ideas, and running what could be described as an incompetent campaign, Trump remained popular, due to his appeal to voters who harbored similar ideas, as well as his purported business acumen. Trump wanted to run the country like he ran his businesses, which I imagined wouldn’t be a good thing, since he had declared bankruptcy four times in the past. Trump proved to be caustic to the campaign, as he liked to bully and criticize the other candidates and the media, and he often whined if he didn’t get his way. He even dropped out of a debate because he was upset about criticism he received (he ended up holding an event on his own during the debate in question, vowing to give the proceeds to veterans’ charities. He ended up keeping the money for himself). The few ideas he had came off as impractical, and he proved to be too similar to a typical schoolyard bully, not a serious candidate for the White House.

In the Iowa caucuses, candidates with more energetic supporters usually do well. For instance, President Obama used his highly energized base to score a big win in Iowa in 2008, a victory which served as his springboard to winning the Democratic primaries, and then the presidency. In 2016, David Harris used his far-right message to win over the state’s conservative activists and win a fairly sizeable victory over Donald Trump, by a margin of 30 to 20 percent. No other candidate cracked 12 percent, with most of the candidates that had not dropped out yet polling in the single digits. That night, in front of his campaign’s state headquarters in the capital city of Des Moines, and in the bitter February cold, David Harris gave his victory speech to a throng of adoring supporters, who were undeterred by the freezing temperatures as they listened intently, and cheered loudly. They knew they had their candidate, the man who was gonna restore their vision of what America is meant to be.The talk after Harris’ big win after was about the final takeover of the Republican Party by the far right. Among the Republicans, the more establishment-friendly commentators saw Harris as the downfall of the party, that he was “proof that the inmates were taking over the asylum”, but those voices were drowned out by the voices of the uber-conservative members of the party. Rich Hallman, perhaps the most well known commentator in conservative talk radio, was ecstatic at the result. Hallman exclaimed that Harris was “the one who was gonna take America back from the takers”, and the “messenger of freedom”, before launching into one of his trademark tirades about liberals and welfare recipients, to whom he boasted “Everyone who has been leeching off the government…..Your free ride is soon to be over, you will have to stop complaining and hand over your EBT cards. Time to get a job and not be a useless parasite for once in your pathetic lives. No more living off of me. My money is mine, and your money is yours. And if you don’t have enough, that is your problem, not mine. Figure it out yourself.” Hallman, an overweight, pill-popping bloviator of a man who had dominated talk radio for a couple of decades before going too far one day and losing some of his audience and many of his sponsors, saw a final victory for conservatism. To him, and to many of his millions of listeners, David Harris was the man who was going to bring about that victory.

The Democratic side had been turned on its head as well during the Iowa Caucuses. In a shocker, Hillary Clinton was upended by Robert Morrison, by a relatively close margin of 31 to 28 percent. Morrison gave his victory speech that night as well, but he did it inside his Iowa campaign headquarters in Des Moines, to a much smaller and less boisterous crowd than Harris drew. Morrison surely had his energetic, dedicated supporters, but they weren’t as entranced as Harris’ supporters. The Democratic side had plenty of post-caucus commentary as well. On their side, the talk was about Hillary Clinton failing once again to win in Iowa, where she came in third in 2008 after being the frontrunner for months. Both times she ran for president, she started out as the heavy favorite, even considered to be the inevitable candidate by the talking heads, before losing ground to lesser-known rivals. This time was even more embarrassing for Clinton, as Robert Morrison was even lesser known at first than Barack Obama was. Robert Morrison was a tall, lanky, brown-haired fellow in his mid-40’s. He was previously a college history professor at the University of Maryland, and had only been in politics for a little over a decade, getting elected to his House of Representatives seat representing the city of Baltimore in 2002. He was your standard-issue Democrat these days, talking big about helping the poor and middle class, even though his biggest contributors were big banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. He sure talked a big game, making big proposals to help the middle class, somewhat expanding the safety net, raising the minimum wage and some further health care reform. Morrison’s proposals did endear him to working class voters, as well as much of the liberal wing. Despite his progressive rhetoric, Morrison was probably going to be pretty corporate-friendly like the last couple Democratic presidents. He was more liberal than Hillary Clinton, but less liberal than Senator Bernie Sanders, who was my choice to be president but unfortunately whose campaign wasn’t favored by the Democratic establishment like Clinton’s and Morrison’s. Sanders got far less campaign coverage than the other two, and despite the incredible energy of his supporters, the large crowds he was drawing, and his formidable fundraising operation, struggled to win over other Democratic constituencies. After gaining in momentum throughout the summer of 2015, he began to fade as 2015 closed, and he ended up finishing third in the Iowa Caucuses, with 21 percent. Perhaps if Robert Morrison had not come along, Bernie Sanders might have gained more traction, and maybe he would have been the one to put up a fight against Hillary Clinton instead. Either way, Robert Morrison was the man of the moment for the Democrats. He had struck a balance between the measured, moderate policies of Hillary Clinton and the wholesale changes championed by Bernie Sanders. Due to this balance, establishment figures, including many of his fellow Representatives who already knew and had deep respect for him, started lining up behind him, much to the dismay of the Clinton campaign. Could she possibly lose the nomination she supposedly had locked up twice in just eight years? It certainly looked like a possibility after Iowa.

The two winners of the Iowa Caucuses emerged as the frontrunners in their respective parties. Both men saw a surge in media coverage, as well as an infusion of cash from increased donations. David Harris got a big boost in his fundraising totals to his official campaign, which was already doing well, to go along with the big money he already got from his billionaires. Harris used the new energy he got from his Iowa win and scored a huge win the next week in the next state to vote, the tiny northeastern state of New Hampshire. Backed by the more libertarian base in the state, he squashed Trump, who had pinned his dwindling hopes at the nomination to winning the state, by a margin of 39 to 19 percent. Harris’ support continued to grow as candidates began dropping out. On top of the four candidates who dropped out before the primaries even began, four more dropped out after Iowa, including big names such as Mike Huckabee, a preacher and former Arkansas governor who lost a lot of his religious conservative voter base to Harris, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who lost a lot of his fiscal conservative voter base to Harris. The field dropped by three more after New Hampshire, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who started out strong before Harris took the Tea Party vote from him. The Harris campaign was now looking unstoppable, as he was wiping out candidates who were once seen as major contenders. The Democratic primaries were quickly becoming a two-way race between Robert Morrison and Hillary Clinton, with Morrison scoring a slim 36 to 34 percent win. The Democratic field dropped to just two after New Hampshire, as Bernie Sanders, who had made a big play in New Hampshire (located next door to Vermont, who he served in the Senate), dropped out after a disappointing third-place finish in the state. The election was now really looking to be a Morrison-Harris contest. My thoughts turned to making sure Harris lost, at all costs. I wasn’t particularly crazy about Robert Morrison. He wasn’t bad, per se, but he wasn’t that great either. However, he was likely going to run against a far-right lunatic in the general election, a man who I genuinely felt would do irreparable damage to the country. After nominating relative moderates in the previous two elections, the Republican party was now set to give their most conservative candidate the nod. Indeed, Harris was seen by observers as the most right-wing presidential candidate in many years, if not ever.

Another development in the early months of 2016, something that perhaps had just as much significance as the rise of David Harris, was the massive reach of the far-right political machine, led by uber-rich benefactors such as the Reed Brothers. On top of bankrolling the now-frontrunner Harris, the Reeds filled the coffers of Senate, House and even state legislature and gubernatorial candidates of their choosing, pouring millions to tens of millions into hundreds of races, all around the country. The Reeds saw their opening to get the government they wanted, and poured in even more money than they originally planned to get these individuals elected. These candidates all had similar ideals to David Harris, as if they all came off some factory assembly line. These candidates largely ran in safely Republican districts, where all they had to beat was an establishment-friendly Republican candidate in the primary, and then they could coast in the general election, since the district lines were redrawn by Republican-controlled legislatures in many states to where in many of the districts, the Republican candidate had little to no chance of losing the general election. This process, called gerrymandering, had been practiced by both major parties throughout the nation’s history, but the Republican Party perfected it in the wake of the 2010 elections, right after that year’s Census, using modern technology and more precise data to get districts that they wanted. Anyways, these hardline conservatives used the millions of Reed money to overwhelm their primary opponents, defeating dozens of Republican Representatives and several Senators along the way. Not even powerful incumbent Republicans were safe, as a number of them got toppled by far-right rabble rousers. This was sure to solidify the hold of the far-right over Congress, as most of these uberconservatives would coast in their general election fights, especially when infused by more billionaire cash. More right-wing millionaires and billionaires began following the Reed’s lead and started pumping more and more money into the same candidates. In their eyes, they finally had a chance to get everything they wanted. They were poised to secure the Congress that they wanted, with the President that they wanted, and would get to have the country that they wanted.

As the race dragged on over the next few months, and the frontrunners continued to win the majority of the primaries and caucuses, it looked like that it would be Robert Morrison versus David Harris. David Harris had wrapped up the Republican nomination by late April, as he had become the standard bearer for the party, the most conservative candidate in many decades. Liberal commentators ratcheted up the articles and television segments about him. Commentators would begin to parse all of his past statements and his voting record, going all the way back to 2010. He was unelectable, they said, because he would rip up the entire American social compact (which he would). They saw that the social safety net was in grave danger, in ways it hasn’t been before. They predicted the dire consequences of a Harris victory, which usually revolved around the ideal of America reverting to a feudalistic-type of society, with a few ultra-wealthy and everyone else living a miserable existence. “This man cannot win, he will undo over a century of social progress. What he calls freedom is actually a path to mass poverty. It is 2016, but David Harris wants to revert this country to 1916, with its near-complete lack of regulation and lower standard of living. His plans will lead to massive job losses, and the remaining jobs will pay subsistence-level wages. Those who cannot find a job, or afford medical care, or do not make enough money to get by, they will be out of luck. We would return to the dog eat dog world that laissez-faire economics creates. This great nation will slide into third-world status, with misery in store for the masses.” Declared the June issue of Mother Jones, a long-running liberal publication.

 One prescient voice during this time belonged to a fellow named James Patton, a left-wing commentator who had a television show on the premium cable network HBO. Patton made a different prediction during a May episode of his show, which was titled “Real Talk With James Patton”, that a Harris Administration, if it got its way and implemented the entirety of the right-wing wish list, would cause a catastrophic collapse of the economy, the likes of which have never seen before.Patton dubbed the pending collapse “The Great Depression on Steroids”, saying it would affect everyone in a negative manner, even the rich. Patton, a Navy veteran turned commentator in his late 30’s, used his sharp wit and intelligent takes during his meteoric rise from a local station in his native Illinois to having his own show on HBO. Patton had a tendency to not hold back anything, especially with his political commentary. James Patton was that rare left-of-center personality who was almost as harsh towards Democrats as he was towards Republicans. He saved his worst ire for the presumptive Republican nominee. He ripped Harris mercilessly during multiple episodes, calling him a dangerous man, and a puppet of the Reed brothers. He was a puppet for his rich benefactors, who shared his views that there should be no sort of government intervention, especially on the economy. That would mean no welfare programs, no retirement programs, no health programs, no environmental laws, and no laws to help workers. Those views made him a danger to this nation. “David Harris would be the end of the United States, and perhaps the world as we know it.” Patton said in his closing remarks at the end of that same episode.

As for the Democrats, the battle for their nomination dragged all the way to the end of the primary calendar, which stretched into June. In a shocker, Robert Morrison ended up defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nod, clinching the nomination with a resounding victory in the California Primary on June 7th. It was a result that nobody predicted at the outset of the campaign, as even Morrison was surprised. “We shocked the world everybody!” Morrison told his adoring supporters in his victory speech in Los Angeles on the night he emerged victorious. “We have a chance to create a better America, a fairer America. But remember, we are a long ways from the mountaintop. This is merely the beginning of our journey. We need to keep fighting and working through November 8th, when we will win the presidency!”

After dispatching Clinton, Morrison geared up for the tough general election fight that was to follow. He sounded upbeat, despite the fact that David Harris had a massive war chest ready to go, which by this point had already amounted to over half a billion dollars, when combining his prodigious official campaign fundraising and the massive infusion of money he was getting from the few dozen rich families that were bankrolling Restoring American Freedom, led by the Reeds. Morrison, upon securing the Democratic nomination, immediately launched his main line of attack at Harris, calling him the candidate of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy. Morrison also painted Harris as out of touch, whose policies would inflict great harm. “He will help those who do not need help. Republicans cut taxes for the rich, and the rest of us suffer for it. Inequality is reaching new heights, and the Republican answer for that is by cutting taxes for the rich yet again. We have been failed by them over and over and over again!”

Robert Morrison also proclaimed himself as the candidate for the people, who will stand up for the little guy. Surely enough, his policies would be far better than the alternative. It was sure to be a fascinating race, too bad not many were paying attention, other than those who paid close attention to politics. Most people don’t think much about it, the level of attention paid wouldn’t go up more until closer to the election. One thing that Americans were known for was their apathy. It seemed that more people followed the exploits of television, movie, music and sports stars than the important issues of the day. People were completely okay with getting screwed over, day in and day out, by the elites of society, as long as they had their reality tv shows to watch, their celebrity news to check out, and their favorite sports teams to follow. Movies, TV and sports had become multi-billion dollar industries during this time, and had tv channels and radio stations dedicated to covering them. Now don’t get me wrong, it was ok to pay some attention to these things. It was important to have a diverse set of interests. I myself was quite the sports nut back then, as I’ve stated before. Heck, I could tell who won the World Series or the Super Bowl (two of America’s premier sporting events, the championships for baseball and football, respectively) most years, but I still cared about what was truly important in the world. Though I knew who won the big game, I also knew about a major bill that was being debated in Congress, or what the unemployment rate was at that moment, or what a particular political candidate’s stance was on Social Security. I guess I can understand why this apathy among my fellow citizens existed. Many people were disillusioned at the state of affairs of our world. They saw that things were rigged against them, and they just didn’t want to think of it, to the point that they didn’t care anymore. There was also the fact that so many were simply trying to survive, and couldn’t expend any energy on other matters. I will admit that there were times that I almost envied those who were ignorant of the world around them. This trend was especially prevalent with young adults, those who were close in age to me. Like I said, I was quite the outlier among those in my age group. Knowledge of current affairs was very low with them, to the point that my friends and classmates thought I was strange for following that kind of stuff, or wanting to discuss it. If I brought it up, they would just politely agree with me, followed by awkward silence. For that reason, I rarely brought up those types of things when hanging out with Jimmy or Andrew, or any of my coworkers, I might mention something if the topic came up, and try to make my case, but other than that, I wouldn’t say anything about it. I just wish that more folks had been aware of the important issues of the day. If that had been the case, then maybe, just maybe, the course of our history would have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t be writing about the horrific things that followed.

The head-to-head polls showed a pretty close race, as the two candidates were neck-and-neck. Some polls showed Morrison in the lead, and some showed Harris in the lead, still others showed them completely tied. This was much to the delight of dozens of media outlets, who preferred the drama of close elections, or as they would like to call it, the horse race. Close elections meant better television ratings, more newspaper sales, more Internet page clicks. All of that meant more money for the media outlets.

The 2016 election did turn out to be a close, hard-fought election. The polls continued to remain close throughout the entire general election season, as the candidates criss-crossed the country to meet with voters and hold rallies, where they gave their standard stump speeches, which sounded similar every single time, to the point where I can almost recite them, word for word. Also, by criss-crossed the country, I actually mean they went back and forth to the ten or so states where the state could go for either candidate, the so-called battleground states. Virtually all of the campaign stops made by either Robert Morrison and David Harris were to places like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia or Iowa, among a few others. You see, the United States had a strange, outdated way of electing its presidents, called the Electoral College. Each state had its vote, and the candidate who got the most votes in that state would get a certain number of votes, which were called electoral votes (the number for each state was determined by the number of members of Congress the state had). Some called for presidential elections to be determined by whoever gets the most total votes (called the popular vote), but for some reason, the powers that be wanted to maintain this relic of a voting system, which originated in the 18th century when the nation’s founding fathers put it in our Constitution. As a result of this system, the states where the voting was supposed to be close got the vast majority of attention from the candidates. Voters in most states never so much as saw an ad for a presidential campaign. My home state was one of the states that didn’t get much attention in the presidential election. Here in southern California, you didn’t see many yard signs for either candidate, and campaign bumper stickers on cars were few and far in between. I didn’t even see an ad for either candidate until just a few weeks until Election Day.

Despite having more popular views on issues such as the economy, healthcare, foreign policy, education, and immigration, Robert Morrison had a hard time staying on top of the polls as the election approached. A big reason for this, I am sure, is the fact that the Harris campaign was dramatically outspending Morrison’s campaign. Using the donations from his official campaign, as well as the amounts being raised on his behalf by his Super PAC, David Harris’ campaign became the most-expensive campaign ever, by far. His Super PAC had raised close to one and a half billion dollars, the vast majority of which came from just a few hundred individuals. The lion’s share of this came from those sinister industrialists, the Reed brothers. Once the general election hit, the Reed brothers had kicked their already prodigious fundraising into overdrive, as they decided to raise, and give, even more than the 900 million they originally set out to give. Not only was David Harris the recipient of this largesse, but hundreds of super-conservative Republican House and Senate candidates all over the country got a shot in the arm from their cash as well. They were using their vast wealth to swing seats in the favor of their chosen candidates, on a scale never seen before. They saw their opportunity to get a government that was going to completely do their bidding, and they would make sure to make it a reality. They wanted something in return for the investment they put in, much like any other campaign contributor. Much of this money was used to flood the airwaves with ads, which were usually of the nasty attack ad variety, where you would see a picture of the target candidate with some dark, negative-sounding tune in the background, and some intimidating-sounding voice imploring the viewer not to vote for said candidate because of some proposal, or a vote that they cast, that is supposed to be a bad thing. The conservative groups and Super PACs carpetbombed the airwaves with these ads all over the country, saying to vote for their candidates. The ads aired day and night, for seemingly months before the election, primarily in the all-important battleground states, but most of the ads that I saw as Election Day approached were from Restoring American Freedom. “Don’t vote for Robert Morrison, he is an enemy of freedom. Robert Morrison wants to RAISE YOUR TAXES. He wants to LET THE GOVERNMENT HAVE A SAY IN YOUR HEALTHCARE” The ads would say. The ads were often filled with misinformation or outright lies. For instance, Morrison had no plans to raise taxes for 95 percent of the American population, but the tax hike line stuck.

On top of the copious ads, and the vast Harris media operation, was the fact that Robert Morrison ran a relatively weak campaign. Though his fundraising operation paled in comparison to Harris’, Morrison was also no slouch when it came to raising campaign cash. Despite denouncing the existence of Super PACs, Morrison saw that he had no choice to have one of his own, which was called Moving America Forward. Despite having a large campaign of his own, Morrison struggled to make his case to the people. Morrison was not a particularly good communicator, and he couldn’t really convince voters why they should vote for him, or connect with them in any meaningful way. His policy proposals were more progressive and populist when compared to President Obama, and to Hillary Clinton, his vanquished Democratic rival, he wanted a modest raise in the minimum wage and wanted to make modest reforms to education and health care, but he struggled to get voters excited like David Harris did. One common knock against Robert Morrison was that he was just a bit too cozy with Wall Street, as the list of his top contributors was dotted with big banks and investment firms, which was in contrast with David Harris, who Wall Street largely shunned. In the eyes of some voters, it seemed that Morrison was the candidate of big business, and Harris was talking for regular people, despite his kooky views, as well as the fact that Harris had his own set of big business backing him. This was in contrast to previous election cycles, where the Republican was seen as the big business candidate, who was showered with Wall Street money. Perhaps Morrison’s biggest failing was that he would not stand up and forcefully call out the highly dangerous agenda of his Republican opponent. Now, I don’t care for attacks against candidates, but there is a line between highlighting a candidate’s views and attacking them. Yeah, he would make the point that David Harris’ policies were dangerous, and he did highlight Harris’ connections with the Reed brothers and other super-wealthy folks, but Robert Morrison didn’t effectively make it known to the voters exactly what David Harris’ version of freedom actually entailed. There were plenty of statements and proposals that Harris had made in the past that Morrison could have used, like his calls to eliminate the minimum wage (which Harris would actually talk about on the campaign trail from time to time), or his echoing his fellow conservatives’ claims that Social Security was a “bankrupt Ponzi scheme”. Harris’ true beliefs were known to progressive voters, by way of progressive media outlets running endless articles about him, and that is what kept them supporting Morrison. Morrison was far from perfect, but he was still much better than Harris. I just wish that more voters saw it that way. Many undecided voters were swayed by the stump speeches, and the glossy campaign ads showing Harris with his kind-looking blonde wife (I swear, all conservative women looked the same, as if they were all clones or something) and his two young, blonde, pigtail-wearing daughters, describing what freedom meant to them, and what it should mean to the voter, too. The big takeaway from the typical Harris ad was that he “believed in small government, that shouldn’t interfere in anyone’s life. Everyone should have a chance to build their life as they see fit.” The message sounded harmless enough, even though many didn’t quite understand the full implications of small government. 

As the election approached, and the prospect of a Harris victory looked more and more realistic, I grew increasingly worried. I knew exactly what David Harris stood for, and what he would do if he won. Sure, he came off as this nice, folksy guy, someone who could easily be your next-door neighbor, but that masked an insidious agenda that was bought and paid for by his campaign contributors. Whenever any conversation I was engaged in turned to politics, I went to a similar theme. I would tell anyone willing to listen that if Harris won, our country was in a world of trouble, worse than anybody can possibly believe. I know I was sounding a lot like Chicken Little when I talked politics, but I needed to say it. Some would agree with me wholeheartedly, such as Leann or my old buddy Jimmy Sanchez or my good neighbors Juan Morales and Frank Jackson. I even got my mom on board to vote for Morrison, though she wasn’t too fond of him. It was okay, neither was I. I had rather quickly talked myself into voting for Robert Morrison, despite the reservations I had about him. I didn’t much care for his past support for our conflicts in the Middle East, or the fact that he got millions in donations from big banks and financial firms, or that he didn’t support improving our healthcare system, but at least he wouldn’t do away with our social safety net or shred worker’s rights or completely wreck our economy or try to turn the country into a theocracy. I usually abhorred the thought of voting for the “lesser of two evils” candidate, but this time was different. The stakes were simply too high this time. If the Republican candidate were just about anyone else, I would have voted for one of the smaller party candidates, just like I did in 2012. Heck, even if it was the lunatic racist billionaire Donald Trump, I would have voted third party. But with Harris, I simply couldn’t, so I held my nose somewhat and supported Robert Morrison.

I would get some resistance whenever I went on one of my rants. “What’s wrong with balancing the budget? We need to get out of debt, and Harris will do that for us. This country is what, 20 trillion dollars in debt? We need to not spend more money than we take in, just like a household. Or we’ll just keep owing China more and more. Everyone will be better off this way.” A woman from my office named Hannah Erickson, the Accounts Receivable clerk for Milton Plastics who sat right in front of me in the office, retorted referring to Harris’ balanced budget proposal. “He speaks to me on the issues, he wants freedom for Americans. Our economy will be better off if people are free to start businesses and do what they want. Our government crushes people’s dreams by regulating everything. And besides, he wants to relax gun laws.” Replied my uncle Paul in an online conversation when I asked him why he was supporting Harris, despite the fact that he was a security guard making near minimum wage. Good thing he wasn’t even registered to vote, so that is one less vote for Harris.

The disagreements I would get from other individuals would generally sound similar, whether it was my boss Ken Milton, who I did have a civil disagreement with at my desk concerning the election. Though after that, I would hold my tongue whenever he talked politics. Or there were my cousin Morgan and her mother, my aunt Jean, both of whom lived in Arizona and would get in online arguments with me when I posted something criticizing David Harris, something I found myself doing more and more. I think I got in arguments with them close to every day, but since we were family, we stayed civil with each other for the most part, which was far more than can be said if I got into it with a stranger online. They were both very outspoken in their support of Harris, but I would not give in, no matter what. “I like that he’ll stop people from depending on the government. We’ll all be better off when people aren’t getting handouts and wasting all our money.” My cousin Morgan would frequently retort, which was rich coming from her, considering she had spent much of her adult life on the same programs she was now deriding. We had a back and forth on a variety of issues, such as the food stamp program, which she wanted to end due to how much it cost (it fed tens of millions of Americans, for only about 2 percent of the federal budget), or Robert Morrison’s plan to reduce student debt, which she opposed because she has been paying her enormous student debt down. Typical conservative response: Because she was screwed by a bad system, future generations must be screwed by it too. Or there was her opposition to raising the minimum wage, despite the fact that she herself has worked a number of minimum wage jobs. I actually got this from a few people, including some of my old coworkers at Video Star. I’m telling you, that conservative messaging was powerful.

Even if I got pushback, I remained undeterred. I would usually refer to Harris’ past statements and proven facts for my ammunition in my arguments, but sometimes even I couldn’t help with the partisan rhetoric, calling him a disaster or an idiot. I would predict gloom and doom, predicting a collapse in the economy if he completely got his way. The Harris agenda, which was dubbed “The Freedom Blueprint” by the Harris campaign, was rather vague on many issues. This was perhaps to hoodwink the low-information voters as to what he actually planned to do. He spoke little about what his exact plans were, he gave platitudes to balancing the budget, restoring opportunity to the people and protecting freedom. His blueprint spoke of terms such as “welfare reform”, “entitlement reform”, and “shrinking and streamlining government to work for the people”. He wouldn’t say exactly how he would do the things he talked about, perhaps because he knew the voters wouldn’t care for his solutions. Best to keep them in the dark, so they would vote for him. This was one of the ways Republicans could win elections, despite always trotting out unpopular ideas.

Then came the election itself, on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. It was finally time for Americans to cast their ballots. Like many people, I was tired of hearing what this or that guy said, and tired of the ads that kept popping up to vote for this candidate, or vote for or against that ballot proposal. Unfortunately, the attention paid to the election was relatively low compared to recent presidential elections. I admit that I was pretty nervous as the day went on, and there were a few conversations in the office about it. Even the office seemed pretty evenly divided between Morrison and Harris supporters. I just wanted to get finished with the work day, so I could get home to obsessively pore over election returns, which wasn’t exactly what a lot of others were doing. Fortunately, it was a pretty busy day, so the time went by fairly quickly. A few of the guys in the office were going to go to the bar, like it was a regular day. One of the guys, a fellow new employee in the accounting department that I had become friends with named Reggie Wallace, invited me as I was about to leave for the day, but I told him I was gonna stay in that night. Once the work day ended, he headed off to one of the bars in downtown Brea with a couple of the guys from Sales who I didn’t really know or talk to, while I headed straight home.

I got home to my apartment shortly before 6 PM. After making it home, I grabbed a bag of potato chips to snack on until I built up the willpower to cook the chicken that was thawing on the kitchen counter, and plopped down on my couch and nervously turned on the TV and turned on CNN (the main mainstream news station) for their wall-to-wall election coverage. I also fired up my laptop, as I felt that I may have finally gone over the edge, as I was probably paying too much attention for my own mental well-being. As the hours passed, and state-by-state results rolled in, something disheartening, and disturbing, was going on. This was looking to be another one of those “wave” elections for the Republicans. I cringed whenever it was announced that another far-right Republican candidate, a Harris clone, won a key Senate race. And the House results were largely breaking the same way. CNN proclaimed that in virtually every hotly-contested Senate or House race, the Republican candidate vastly outspent the Democratic candidate, and it was showing in the results. The Republican Party’s endless television ads and mailers were paying major dividends for them, and it now looked that they were going to pad their advantage in the Senate, when it was forecast at the outset of the election season that they would lose seats, possibly to the point that the Democrats would take control of that chamber once again. The Republicans also added to their already large advantage in the House. We were going to get the most far-right Congress in a long, long time, possibly ever. Dozens of Tea Party members would enter both houses of Congress in early January, hailing from states from Florida to California, from Maine to Alaska. They may have been from very different places, but they all had the same goal, to dismantle the federal government and fulfill their vision for the country. Even if Robert Morrison were to win the presidency, he would get a Congress that would be impossible to work with, who would oppose him at every turn. Any progress would be stopped dead in its tracks.

The most coverage of all went to the biggest race of the night, the race for the White House. I got a sinking feeling whenever it became apparent that David Harris was going to win a key state. I let out a big string of curse words when it was announced, within a few minutes of each other, that he won the major battleground states of Florida and Ohio. I hollered so loud that my next door neighbor Juan knocked on the door and asked if I was okay.

“Hey Will, are you okay? I heard a lot of commotion there! What are you yelling about?”, Juan asked, clearly concerned about my mental state.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just watching election results”, I answered back, with a pained look on my face and shaking my head. I looked like I actually did injure myself.

With an expression that started off as puzzled, but turned into worry, as he was also a Morrison supporter, “Oh, is Harris winning?”

“Yeah, it looks like he just might win, unfortunately. He is winning in the crucial places. We are so fucked if he pulls it off!” I replied in a calm voice that turned into a somewhat loud yell by the end. “Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. We’re done for man!” I was now truly sounding like a crazy person, and at that moment, I felt that I was. I couldn’t help it.

After that exchange, I invited Juan in to watch the results, an invitation that he accepted after letting his wife know he would be next door. He had taken an interest in politics recently, and we had some good talks about current events. He even voted for the very first time that day. Juan was a good, family-oriented man who worked in construction, primarily working on building commercial buildings, like a lot of the nice new business buildings near the Ontario Mills mall on the eastern end of town. He was a short, pudgy, but very strong Latino man with scruffy black hair. He was in his early 30’s and lived in the apartment next door (I lived in apartment 5, he lived in 6, both located upstairs) with his lovely wife Lucia and their two sons, Juan Jr. and Marcos, who were nine and seven years of age, respectively. He was home from work earlier than usual today, as he often worked very long hours in order to provide for his family (he often didn’t get home until 7 P.M). Once Juan decided to stay over here to hang out with me and watch election coverage, Lucia brought me an amazing plate full of enchiladas and Spanish rice. I was planning on either cooking the chicken that lay on the counter or ordering a pizza for dinner, but I changed my plans once she brought over that glorious plate of food. Her cooking was just too good to pass up, as the Morales family would sometimes invite me over to dinner at their house. I ate while watching the state-by-state returns, but I ate slower than usual, as I normally did when nervous. I usually eat Lucia’s cooking like I’ve never eaten before, devouring her dishes, seemingly without even chewing. “Damn, do you even breathe when you eat?” Juan liked to ask jokingly. Yes, it was that good. That night was different, though, I picked at it, and ate it slowly, even though it was as delicious as always. I was just too nervous to eat those wonderful chicken enchiladas with the delicious red sauce this time. After another close Harris victory, this time in the state of Michigan, I saw that a Harris victory was now rather likely. He was going to sweep the conservative deep south and midwestern states, which was probably enough to claim victory. The hammer finally dropped around 9 P.M. Pacific time, when it was announced that, after the polls closed in Alaska, that Harris’ victory in Alaska gave him 272 electoral votes, when 270 was needed to claim victory. It was over, the unthinkable had happened. David Harris beat Robert Morrison, 295 electoral votes to 243, in the 2016 presidential election. I turned to Juan, who had stayed with me even though it looked like he was bored at times. He would ask me questions about our whole election system. Even though he was new to all this, even he realized that the Electoral College was idiotic. Despite his boredom, I think he just enjoyed having a friend in the complex, no matter how odd or quirky that friend was. Moments after the networks declared a Harris victory, I finally conjured up the ability to speak.

“Holy s**t, man. He did it, he actually won. What the hell? I think I’m gonna be sick.” I said to Juan. I started to turn pale and began breathing hard, as if I were actually becoming physically ill. At this point, I also started to look like I might start crying.

“Don’t worry, you will be okay. Everything will be okay, I think.” Juan replied to me. Then he continued. “So Will, is he gonna actually get rid of the minimum wage? Did he really say that?” He had recalled that little tidbit from a conversation we had a couple of weeks earlier. He then continued:

“That might hurt me and the guys I work with, most of them don’t get paid that much. A lot of the new guys make around minimum wage, and they mostly struggle right now. I think that would hurt a lot of people, a lot of people don’t make that much right now, it seems like that would get worse…..Will my pay go down, Will? Because if it does, I might not be able to afford food and rent and clothes and all the other stuff, and my boys won’t be able to play soccer anymore. I might have to use my savings, which I don’t wanna do, I want to save that to buy a house and maybe put the boys through college when they get older. Things are already tough!”

“You might get a pay cut, but I hope not. I guess that decision will be made by your boss, and now bosses will get to pay their employees whatever the hell they want. I truly hope you guys aren’t hurt by this, you are a good family” I told him. “I want to see you guys succeed, especially your boys, they’re good kids. They’re so smart, they can do great things someday. I want them to have a good, comfortable life, where they don’t have to worry, just like I want for my parents or my sisters or the children of my other friends or really anybody.”

“Damn, maybe I might see my pay go down, my boss Scott is an a*****e! He has a David Harris sticker on the window of his big pickup truck. I heard him talking about the election sometimes, or listening to political talk on the radio. He always listened to that Rich Hallman guy.” Juan chuckled. “I guess if my pay drops, me and the family can get like some food stamps to make up the difference. I really don’t want to go to the government for help, but if it means I can feed my kids, I’ll do it. I mean, I may end up with no choice.” Juan now seemed really down. He was a proud man, proud that he can feed his family and keep a roof over their heads. I feared what was in store in the future for the Morales family, for my family, and for everyone else as well, in the wake of David Harris’ victory. But I had to tell him another thing, something that would crush that idea he just mentioned to me.

“Um, from what I’ve heard, I think Harris wants to get rid of welfare and food stamps and all that other stuff too. He spoke of ‘reforming welfare’ on the campaign trail. Then he would follow it with lines about people being free or whatever. He wouldn’t directly say he would get rid of that stuff, but he had talked about it in the past. That is one of reasons I am acting the way I have been.” I told Juan, my voice taking an increasingly depressed tone. I saw the life seemingly disappear from his face for a second, just like it already had from mine. He had a look of despair on his face, which quickly turned to anger.

“Are you serious man? Does he want people to starve in the streets? Because that might happen now! You know what man, I think I might be sick now too!” He shot back to me, his voice wavering up and down, now he sounded kind of like he was gonna start crying. He was clearly shaken up by tonight’s result, by what I told him about the President-Elect. After taking a minute to gather his things, and gather his emotions (he didn’t want Lucia or the boys to see him so upset), he shook my hand like he always would, grabbed our plates, and headed back next door to his family. I closed the door behind him after our goodbyes and plopped down back onto my small but nice and comfortable brown couch that my parents found at a yard sale and gave to me when I moved out. I only had one word at this point, as I let out a loud “S**t!!!!!” that people probably heard the next town over. After a couple of minutes, with everything running through my head, I started to weep. I didn’t think that the result of a political election could have that kind of effect on me, but this one did. I tried to convince myself that, hey, maybe it won’t turn out as bad as I thought, maybe the coverage and news stories and articles I saw on David Harris were overblown, maybe he will be rather moderate once he assumes office, or maybe Congress would stop him from passing everything that he wanted. No matter how much I tried to tell myself otherwise, I still knew deep down that the United States of America was now truly, hopelessly screwed. I had thoughts in my head of how a hypothetical economic collapse would play out, what would happen to me, or my parents, or my sisters, or my friends, or society in general. Those thoughts had been with me for some time, of what exactly what would happen, but now they were coming to a head, and that caused me to weep more, and more profusely than before. That night was a long, sleepless night for me. I did attempt to sleep, but just tossed and turned to the point where I probably didn’t sleep more than an hour or two. I would pick up my phone to scroll through Facebook like I often would at night, I saw that some of my political friends were similarly morose. I saw a link with David Harris’ victory speech, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it and watch. I also chatted with my sister Leann about the results. “NOOOOOO! Imma cry now” was her first response to me breaking the news to her. “I’m seriously crying right now, all my friends are comforting me!”

I had to call off work the next morning, as I told Mr. Milton that I had become ill. Due to the lack of sleep, I was in no condition to focus at work and be productive, so I used one of the sick days I had saved up, sick days that I probably wouldn’t have anymore soon. Still in a semi-catatonic state, I grabbed my laptop, and opened up some election news. Looking at the figures, I noticed that voter turnout was quite a bit lower than in previous presidential elections. A meager 51 percent of registered voters bothered to cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. down from 57 percent in 2012, and 62 percent in 2008. Other than the diehard followers, voters came off as apathetic this election. Perhaps some of this is due to the fact that regular people felt they had no voice, that the rich had completely taken over our democracy, to which I thought, that if more regular people voted, maybe we would have a voice. Perhaps some of us were turned off by the vast numbers of ads that aired, as there were far more of them than during previous election cycles. Maybe it was the fact that the candidates weren’t that great. Many people, such as myself, don’t really want to vote for a “lesser of two evils”. The only people who were really inspired and energized were the far-right conservatives who were enthralled by the Harris campaign. This army of folks knocked on doors and sent out mailers and made phone calls on behalf of their candidate, making sure that their man won the election. Twice as many people volunteered for the Harris campaign than did the same for the Morrison campaign.

Another thing I encountered when sifting through the post-election coverage was the fact that conservatives were absolutely ecstatic today. Typically angry and fearful, these individuals completely looked forward to what the incoming Harris Administration would bring. Right-wing commentators such as Rich Hallman and Mary Dennis freely gave their suggestions as to what they felt David Harris should do. Hallman quoted on that day’s show little nuggets such as “those lazy bums who mooch off the government won’t get anything with my money anymore….. If I were to be able to advise our new President, I would take a hacksaw to our budget and…..zero out almost every damn line on it.” and “do you just smell the freedom today?”. Dennis titled her nationally-syndicated newspaper column that day “Finally, America Says No to the Welfare State, and Yes to Liberty”, where she suggested that President-elect Harris “completely abolish” the social safety net. “Not one more cent should go to someone who didn’t work for it. And if you don’t make enough, find ways to make enough.”

I saw similar suggestions from a few of my friends on Facebook (an online social media site that many people went on before the Collapse), especially my conservative relatives. My cousin Morgan, a hard-working single mother of four who was several years older than me and lived in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote out a whole essay of a post, pretty much parroting the points made by the right-wing talking heads that day, you know, “freedom” this and “lazy bums” that. The righties were just having a field day that day, and the day after, and for several weeks after that. I wouldn’t unfriend my own family members just because of political differences, but I sure was tempted to by the endless posts and pictures about “freedom” or “liberty” or “no more free stuff for people who refuse to work”. I mean, the righties were really too happy about this. Oh, if these conservatives knew what destruction they had set in motion.

Reviews

[JayG]

• Now before I talk about the Collapse itself, I want to lay some background, and talk about the events that happened in the years preceding the Collapse. You know, the who, what, where, why and how of the event. What could possibly have happened to bring out such horror and destruction, to the point where most who lived through it are still traumatized?

You say that this is a novel. But it's not. This "chapter" starts as a report, then morfs into a memoir, or sorts. If you were hoping to sell this, or even self publish it, I can tell you, as someone who's owned a manuscript critiquing service, that it would be rejected quickly, because it bears no resemblance to a fiction-writing, which is emotion-based and character centric. In it, the reader is made to feel as if they're living the story as the protagonist, and in real time.

But in this, an unknown narrator, alone on stage, talks TO the reader about things meaningful only to that narrator. For example, you say, "The disagreements I would get from other individuals would generally sound similar, whether it was my boss Ken Milton, who I did have a civil disagreement with at my desk concerning the election." But why would anyone care that someone had a political discussion with someone we know nothing about?

Story happens. It's not talked about in overview and retrospect. Your reader is seeking entertainment, not your political views.

If you want to write fiction, the first thing you need to do is learn the the goal: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ` E. L. Doctorow.

Fail that and you lose the reader. Lecture the reader for a single line and you lose them. Confuse them and they're gone. You need to make the reader FEEL and CARE. By the end of the first page you should be changing the mild curiosity they arrive with to active interest. If that hasn't begun to happen by the end of the page they won't turn to page 2. And if you haven't made that reader lean back in the chair and say, "Hmmm...tell me more," by the end of page three there will be no page four, and you wasted the time it took to write the rest.

Bad news I know. But given that you've been at this for more than a year, do you really want to keep putting that much effort into hardening your nonfiction writing skills into concrete?

Take a read of a chapter or three, of that book I suggested in chapter 1. I think you'll find it eye opening.

And now, having bothered you enough, I'll wish you luck and bow out.